Zeus the greek god biography of william
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Twelve Olympians
Major deities of the Greek pantheon
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus.[2] They were called Olympians because, according to tradition, they resided on Mount Olympus.
Besides the twelve Olympians, there were many other cultic groupings of twelve gods.
Olympians
[edit]The Olympians are a race of deities, primarily consisting of a third and fourth generation of immortal beings, worshipped as the principal gods of the Greek pantheon and so named because of their residency atop Mount Olympus. They gained their supremacy in a ten-year-long war of frakt, in which Zeus led his siblings to victory over the previous generation of ruling immortal beings, the Titans, children of the primordial deitiesGaia and Uranus. They were a family
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Zeus
The greatest of the Olympian gods, and the father of gods and men, was a son of Cronus and Rhea, a brother of Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, and at the same time married to his sister Hera. When Zeus and his brothers distributed among themselves the government of the world by lot, Poseidon obtained the sea, Hades the lower world, and Zeus the heavens and the upper regions, but the earth became common to all.1
Later mythologers enumerate three Zeus in their genealogies: two Arcadian ones and one Cretan; and the first is said to be a son of Aether, the second of Coelus, and the third of Saturn.2 This accounts for the fact that some writers use the name of the king of heaven who sends dew, rain, snow, thunder, and lightning for heaven itself in its physical sense.3
According to the Homeric account Zeus, like the other Olympian gods, dwelt on Mount Olympus in Thessaly, which was believed to penetrate with its lofty summit into heaven itself.4 He is called the
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